The plaster crumbled as he slid along the wall. He remained blind to the inside of the bathroom, except for the sink and toilet. The bedroom was a black abyss. And the noise. The slamming drums and screeching guitars.
Something reached out and touched his back. He spun with the gun aimed. It was just the jamb surrounding the bathroom entryway. Thomas swerved back and aimed at the bedroom. If he couldn’t see Samson, the murderer couldn’t see him. No movement. Not that it was possible to discern the killer shifting inside the bedroom, it was so dark.
His breaths came too fast and pushed him toward hyperventilation. First step. Clear the bathroom.
He swung into the room and swept the gun into the space. Moonlight bled around the drawn shade and pooled on the sill. Thomas rotated his body and directed the gun at the shower. Reached for the shower curtain a second before Alec Samson ripped the curtain aside and leapt at Thomas. In the split second it took him to react and squeeze the trigger, he spotted the pale white face, the wild eyes and mad leer, the knife.
Four blasts threw Samson backward and sprayed blood over the walls. He hung there for a moment, as if suspended by an invisible hand, then slumped into the tub, painting a long, red streak. Over the maddening music, he choked. “Kill them…both. For what they did. Kill them…pig.”
Samson’s eyes hung open long after the life fled his body. Thomas didn’t want to turn his back on the murderer. He nudged Samson with his foot. The madman’s neck lolled at an inhuman angle.
He swung the flashlight at the wall and flipped the switch, forgetting Samson had cut the power. Turned on the faucet and splashed water over his face. He stared at his silhouette in the mirror, wondering how different Alec Samson was from him. Tragedy pushed us over the edge. Did a monster lie dormant in each of us, hibernating until a crippling life event awakened the beast?
“Please! Open the door!”
Skye’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He found the portable stereo in the bedroom and shut off the music. His ears rang. The girl beat her fists against the locked bedroom door with less fervor now.
“I need to find the key,” he said from the other side.
“No, you can’t leave me alone with him!”
“He’s dead, Skye. I shot him.”
A pause from the other side, the quiet suddenly loud.
“You can’t kill death.”
“He’s just a man. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Sunday, August 15th
10:30 p.m.
Thomas never found the keys to unlock the doors. The state police broke the bedroom and basement doors down, and Deputy Aguilar led Skye Feron out of Alec Samson’s house of horrors. Now in her mid-twenties, the emaciated, rail-thin girl hardly resembled her athletic former self. The haunted looks she shot Thomas, Lambert, and the male troopers at the scene spoke to the horrors she’d endured.
The media converged on Cathy Webb’s house. How they found out so quickly, Thomas could only guess. They rushed the property with microphones and cameras and bright lights. Two vans with satellite dishes mounted on the roofs blocked traffic. Lambert forced the drivers to move the vans so the ambulance could reach the scene. It was a zoo. Worse than the scene outside the coroner’s office after Dr. Stone excavated Cathy Webb’s bones from the earth. That day, they’d all believed the skeleton belonged to Skye Feron. That she was alive stunned Thomas.
Bolt cutters broke the manacles securing Justine Adkins to the basement wall. The terrified woman stumbled through the front door with an army blanket draped over her shoulders. Three troopers drove the media back as flashbulbs lit the yard like lightning, and frantic voices begged for an interview, a sound bite, anything to boost ratings.
Neither Skye nor Justine lifted their eyes toward the law enforcement officers leading them to the ambulance. The women converged outside the emergency vehicle and stared at each other in stunned silence. Then Justine threw her arms around Skye as more cameras flashed. An overexuberant reporter with a razor-shaved face and perfect hair rushed the women. Aguilar forced him back with a warning.
A heavy hand clasped Thomas’s shoulder. He turned around to Trooper Baker, the man he’d met outside Paige Sutton’s house after Samson murdered Trooper McBride.
“Well done, Sheriff.”
Thomas shook his head. He’d done nothing except pull the trigger. Were it not for the troopers, it would have taken hours to free the women.
“I don’t understand. What drives a man to hold two women hostage and murder his own cousin?”
“You scored a touchdown for all of us. We want you to know we appreciate what you did here tonight. Can’t have cop killers getting away with murder.” After Thomas didn’t respond, Baker cleared his throat. “We found a pickax in the garage with dried blood on the tip. Forensics took it away. You think that’s what he used to kill Cathy Webb?” And Paige Sutton, Thomas thought. “Also a dark blue Honda Odyssey with an expired registration sticker. It matches the description the assistant manager at the supermarket saw the night Samson kidnapped Justine Adkins. All we lack is the murder weapon he used on Trooper McBride.”
A shout from inside the house pulled their attention. Aguilar, Lambert, and two troopers were already sprinting toward the house. Lights shone from every window now that the power was on.
Thomas was the last to enter the home and climb the stairs, following the path he took before he shot Alec Samson. The crawlspace door hung open. A carrion stench rolled through the opening and overwhelmed the second floor. A mustached trooper turned and covered his mouth as the slender officer on the ladder motioned Thomas to climb up beside him. He followed the flashlight beam to Paige Sutton’s body, stuffed in the crawlspace’s corner
